The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories is a collection of novellas and short stories. I’m rating and reviewing the book as whole, but I’ll include a couple of lines on the separate stories below.

I have said before that I like short form fiction, because it allows writers and readers to explore themes and ideas without the investment and complications necessary for novel-length speculative fiction. I think Ted Chiang is probably the best example of that kind of storytelling I know.

So I was very interested in The Paper Menagerie, and it did not disappoint! The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories belongs on the shelf right next to Exhalation.

I was particularly impressed by the broad range of topics and genres that are included in the collection – they range from effectively fantasy, to alternate history, to historical fiction, to science fiction.

The stories in The Paper Menagerie do share a common theme: most of them, on some level, are about cultural interchange. In particular, many of them are about the experience of Chinese – or more generally, Asian – immigrants in the US. That may appear to be a strange theme for a collection of speculative fiction, but that literary theme married to interesting speculative ideas works surprisingly well.

And while The Paper Menagerie works as a collection, several of the individual stories also really stand out. Only one of the individual stories felt like a dud, and there are several that I am burning to recommend to specific people.

Overall, The Paper Menagerie is certain to delight thoughtful readers of more literary fare as well as curious readers of speculative ideas. Pick it up – I am sure there is a story in there you will remember for a long time!

The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species: 3/5. Fun thought experiments on how different alien species could be to us, through the lens of their possible writing; not the slam-dunk opener I would have gone for though!

State Change: 5/5. Really cute short story about metaphors for one’s personality having a physical shape. It takes a couple of pages to get into it, but I loved it, probably one of the best stories in the book.

The Perfect Match: 4/5. Poignant short story about algorithms deciding our lives. It overdelivers a bit at the end (surprisingly reminding me of Vigilance a bit).

Good Hunting: 4/5. More standard fantasy fare, a character driven, gaslamp-fantasy type short story about technology replacing magic.

The Literomancer: 5/5. Harrowing literary historical story about making friends across cultures and how Americans think they are saving the world, but it turns out they are not.

Simulacrum: 5/5. Very short story about how something more lifelike than a recording existing interferes with the privacy and personal lives of both the recorded person and the watcher.

The Regular: 3.5/5. Detective story, not quite novel length, very Black Mirror-esque, about the murder of an escort.

The Paper Menagerie: 3.5. The story gave its name to the book and won both the Hugo and Nebula award, but it is not the one that stuck with me most; but it is a well-written literary story, that might have speculative elements but that is not about those at all. I think that this one particular story is the one that most strongly exemplifies the through line in the book, of Chinese or Asian characters attempting to fit into a foreign world.

An Advanced Readers’ Picture Book of Comparative Cognition: 2.5/5. This one never clicked for me. It switches back and forth between descriptions of possible outlandish sentient life forms and the story of an ark launching into space. I honestly forgot it was even in the book until I made this list for the review…

The Waves: 3/5. An interesting short story about growing up, the meaning of immortality, and choices made to conserve resources on an ark ship in space, though the premise seemed a little forced to me.

Mono No Aware: 4/5. A Hugo-award winning short story, about the the peculiar culture of Japan holding strong in the face of the apocalypse, the mingling of culture on ark ships and the duty of sacrifice.

All the Flavours: 4/5. A novella, the longest story in the book. All the Flavours is about Chinese immigrants in the Old West, perfectly fitting the book’s overall themes, but it views those themes at just a bit more of a distance since we are separated by time from the characters in the book. I like that the story portrays two sides of the society the Chinese immigrated into: both the welcoming Americans that admire Chinese industriousness and food, as well as the inevitable racism of those that try to exploit them.

A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel: 4/5. An alternate history short story that really tickled my imagination, though the plot itself is perhaps not the greatest.

The Litigation Master and the Monkey King: 3/5. A fine story about a clever lawyer and his inner monologue with a legendary figure, a couple of nice twists but not this book’s highlight.

The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary: 5/5. A great story about the geopolitics and activism in history, the emotional versus the academic side of history, and the personal attrition of a scientist that wants to do good.